The present invention pertains to multiple conductor electrical connectors, particularly electrical connectors providing both high density and high number of conductors. Most particularly, the invention is a three-piece pivoting frame which is operated to retain and manipulate two sets of conductors to connect with both sides of an inserted two-sided connector body. The novel combination of the frame and two-sided geometry provides novel benefits including unconventionally high density and zero net force connection and disconnect operations.
In many applications such as clinical neurological testing of animals, there is often a need for electrical devices with large numbers of distinct electrical circuits and hence equally large numbers of electrical conductors. For many reasons, it is desirable for these conductors to be very small and, in the aggregate, to take up very little space. Particularly in medical research and clinical fields, it is also desirable to provide conductor connectors that enable portions of electrical systems, such as implanted neurological monitoring devices, to be disconnected and reconnected from other system components. There are a great variety of high density conductor connectors developed in the past for these purposes. However, the need for yet higher density and higher numbers of circuits and conductors remains.
A separate, yet related, issue with electrical connectors in the medical research field concerns the incidental forces transmitted when connectors are joined or separated. In most applications outside of the medical field, and many within, these forces are not relevant. However, where electrical devices are implanted into live animal or human subjects, forces used in manipulating the devices and the attached systems components may be critical. Particularly where the subjects are small animals, such as the small mammals that are often used in medical research studies, the ability to disconnect and reconnect implanted devices without transmitting forces to the subject may be critical to survival of the subject and success. Prior high conductor density electrical connectors do not satisfy these requirements. What is desired is a high conductor density electrical connector that may be joined and separated multiple times without transmitting forces to the connected conductors.